Breathe Out and Breathe In
by saphira and shruikan
Summary: Sometimes he just can't believe he helped make someone this small. Sometimes he just can't believe he helped make someone this good. - Cover art of Clementine by MsRenai21.


A cannon goes off in Guzma's head.

He shocks awake. His belly and knees press into the mattress; his hand is curled around a pillow corner. Yellow sunlight waves hello from the bedside window. Just as quickly as he woke Guzma relaxes, sleep swallowing him down dry and warm again. There is no school, no work, no gang to drag him from under this comforter.

Half-dead, he knocks his elbow around the sliver of bed he doesn't occupy. No pink Exeggutor, just the cool velvet of a Lapras plushie. He thinks about plants with pink leaves and sinks into a dream about being chased by an army of Grass-types with rainbow roughage until the next jolt. He starts awake again, leg kicking down the mattress sheet.

Being a light sleeper has never been fun.

With the world clearly out to get him, Guzma reaches groggily for his phone, dragging it an inch from his nose and spamming the lock button. "Bloop bloop bloop," it says to him. He realizes the phone is backwards and he's actually pressing the volume button.

"Fuck off," he suggests.

"Bloop bloop bloop," his phone replies.

Guzma flips the phone around. Ninety nine-plus notifications on Chatoter. Over one thousand emails that he never got around to opening in his over thirty years of life. Six texts from people he gives fuckall about and four from his girlfriend.

 **From: sponge pizza**

-Are you awake?

-Wake up and get clem lunch

-Hellooooooooooo

-Clem needs fruit snacks

Guzma thinks about orange peels and types one-thumbed, an art in which he would've destroyed the industry.

 **To: sponge pizza**

-u ever thonk about hoe twoe people have destroyrd ur pussy in ur lifetime

-ur bpyfriend anf ur daughter

A reply buzzes in a nanosecond later.

 **From: sponge pizza**

-What i wouldn't give to have u never send me that shit wtf

-Get out of bed

 **To: sponge pizza**

-[insefrt nude ere]

 **From: sponge pizza**

-I'm texting my mom to tell ruckus to eat ur ass unless you get up

 **To: sponge pizza**

-cant eveb get sally to do it wtf? shes hotter

 **From: sponge pizza**

-Up

Guzma falls asleep for just under five minutes, his phone propped up by his face, until it vibrates. It grabs him by the mouth and sends lightning through his gut, screams thunder between his ears. His face flinches before his nerves even wake up — _no I'msorrysorrysorry_ — and buries itself in the mattress, disfigured shoulders shrugging up to smother it. Nothing comes.

Nothing comes.

Guzma tosses the phone away and rolls over on his back, limbs stretching out until his ankles hang off the bed. Plumeria has a big effing bed, but a bigger effing boyfriend; a guy would think she'd order a new one by now. It feels like something's being pinched deep inside him until blood doesn't flow. His broken back sings out admonishment. It prods between his shoulder blades, asking him if he remembers that it was never put back together right; when Guzma doesn't listen it starts prying his vertebrae apart.

Guzma wonders how many times he has been pulled apart and put back together again. He supposes life isn't supposed to be a series of refurbishments, but that's what it's been for him. Sometimes he's a smashed sandcastle; other times he's a stained glass window. Right now he's trickling toward the sandcastle.

His ears twitch. Angel taps tumble up the hallway. A piano begins to play in Guzma's heart. Fingertips scratch against the ajar bedroom door. A violin joins in. He shuts his eyes and rolls onto his side, feigning sleep, a smile squatting resolute across his mouth.

Little feet pad across the carpet, threads catching on littler toes. Scrabbling, and then a soft weight floats onto the mattress, like a perched bird. It rolls across the comforter and comes to rest in front of Guzma's stomach and he blooms into an orchestra, all manner of beautiful cacophony cracking the windows with passion.

A tiny voice whispers, "Hawwo." They have really got to get a speech therapist.

Guzma keeps on sleeping, throwing out a snore or two.

"Daddyyy."

Did Guzma have a dream about pink plants? Fucking crazy. He tries to remember the plot.

"Daddy wake up."

Guzma cracks an eye open and barks, "No!"

Clementine goes airborne, flies around the room a few times, then settles back on her knees beside him. Plumeria's golden eyes widen in surprise and delight from her fat little face. Guzma's feather-down hair swirls on her head like a cloud at sunset. She wiggles, mouth open like a dog; her little hands paw through the air, missing him every time.

Guzma cackles, legs kicking, arms thrown across his face. "Good morning!" he booms, shaking the apartment's very foundations. His orchestra throws in an electric guitar solo.

Clementine's fat little arms find the air. "Can I hug you?" she squeaks.

"'Course you can." Clementine throws herself across his stomach like a bed-in-breakfast tray, sticking all sharp corners of her little body into his paunch. "Can I hug you?"

"Yah!" Only then does Guzma reach up and tame the cotton candy machine writhing over him, cradling his barrel arms around Clementine and pulling her close. She boils warmth like a deep-sea trench. She blinks up at him with big eyes, a sapling surrounded by the roots of a mountain.

Her mouth looks like one of Plumeria's shitty emojis. Maybe: :)

"What's up, fruit loops?" Guzma demands. "What time is it?"

"Two j.m.!" Clementine replies in delight. Ever since she found out how time works she's made up her own acronyms for the earth's orientation, like c.m. for about an hour after breakfast, and w.m. for thunderstorms and no second else. Guzma thinks it's genius.

"Two j.m.! Then what the fuc- ahh, frick is your daddy doin' still in bed?" Guzma bellows, using Clementine's hands wrapped around his to punch the air. "What've you been up to all day, peaches?"

Maybe it's: :3c. No, too devious.

Clementine whistles in a deep breath. "I was watchin' a movie!" she squeaks. "Then Rucks'n I were playin' outside an' we saw some big birds."

"Some big birds! You know your daddy doesn't like birds," Guzma gasps, "an' he _especially_ don't like big birds!"

"They were _this big!"_ Clementine's arms soar up and strain for the corners of the room. "They coulda picked you up an' flew you away!"

"If they coulda picked me up, they'd _definitely_ get you, orange. They'd gobble you up in one bite and have Ruckus for dessert."

"I'd fly around!"

"Oh, sure, in a stomach. Would the birds have you home in time for dinner?"

"No. I'm a bird now."

"Ain't that right?" Guzma lifts her up under her arms and sends her airborne; she kicks her dangling feet in delight. "You got no feathers, Clem. You just got smelly toes in my face." She mashes the offending digits against his mouth. "Aghk!"

He finally found it. It's perfect: :

Clementine arms' length away is really lightyears; Guzma sends her crashing back to earth and crowds her against his chest, cheek rested on her little head. The ice that congealed in seconds of her absence skips water and steams right to vapor. "Clem, can I kiss?"

"Yah!" she squeaks. "Can I hug? Can I hug your head?"

"Why, 'course you may." She reaches up and turns into a necklace, or maybe a locket. Arms for chains around his neck, pumping heart chambered with love. He hugs her close, close as he can, and kisses her pale forehead. Kisses her delicate nose, donated by Plumeria five years ago. Blows raspberries on her cheek until she squeals with laughter. Kisses her cotton ball of pink hair, so thin and feathery a hand feels no resistance should it chop at it. He even kisses that patch of snow-white bangs crowning her forehead, donated by Guzma five years ago. Bleach courses through Guzma's veins, donated by all the bottles he's emptied erasing that same spot on himself.

He rests his chin against her shoulder and closes his eyes, a frozen waterfall of words. His heart is so clogged with them that it stops beating altogether. Clementine rests against him, the rarest species of five-year-old: content to relax. Sometimes he just can't believe he helped make someone this small. Sometimes he just can't believe he helped make someone this good. How did tar and broken glass and chemical cleaner contribute to her creation? What dark part of himself might be lurking in his own child?

It's terrifying.

Guzma has come once close to killing, and thrice closer to death. And still Clementine makes his soul feel raw and twitching, like he was born the second she appeared, an apology for all the years before.

Clementine fidgets in his arms and makes herself comfortable, making a nest of her father. She rests her head against his neck and stammers out a sigh, cloudy hair tickling Guzma's chin.

Guzma was never an artist, but he thinks he might become one now. He'll pen earthquaking tributes, paint every shade of pink imaginable. He'll shake the heavens and stop the earth from turning and maybe then it'll escape him, maybe then he'll rest, satisfied that everyone knows what this girl means to him, and even then it won't be enough.

His breath leaves every time he opens his mouth to say it. He whispers, "I'd pull down the sun and the moon for you," into Clementine's hair, quiet like an honest oath must be. She just hums, kidspeak for not knowing what the hell her loony dad is talking about. Guzma closes his eyes and thinks about it, thinks about what he could do or say so she knows she's wanted, she's special, she's loved.

In unconditional love, Guzma is self-taught. He was never shown that luxury.

They doze off together, Guzma propped up between the fifteen pillows cascading from the headboard and Plumeria's Lapras plushie, Clementine propped up against Guzma. A jolt tries to lightning him awake, but his wrist only twitches and settles again. He dreams about giving her the sun and the moon. She dreams about taking him flying.

Eons later, a finger tickles Guzma's shin. His chest is hot, Clementine plastered to him like a barnacle. A melody croons to him, "Honeyyy. Move over." Guzma drags his groggy eyes up to Plumeria and he goes from cardiac arrest right to his heart leaping out of his mouth.

"I love you," he whispers. "Want the moon?"

She smiles, hair twisted up in the way she does for work. Guzma wants everything about her. She kisses his cheek. "What's that about Moon?"

"Clem can have the sun, you can have the moon. It's even."

Plumeria peels her torn tights off and lets her long hair out. She folds into bed behind him like a dropped ribbon. "You talk nuts when you wake up." Her arm snakes around his waist; her chin shelves on his shoulder. "Did you ever even get out of bed?"

"No."

"Lazy boy," she admonishes. "You wouldn't believe the kids taking on the Four these days. We just fought a Tyranitar."

Guzma feels a soft weight blanket his ankles and wiggles his feet to annoy Sally stretched across them. "Ain't those illegal in Alola?"

"Not anymore, apparently. Some wacko group convinced the kahunas they can be good for the environment. That battle was wild, bud. Thought we were gonna lose."

Guzma combs Clementine's hair with his fingers. "Nah. No one can beat my Champion."

He feels Plumeria's smile prod his cheek. "When're you gonna challenge me again, Guzboy?"

"Once wasn't enough? I ain't tryin' somethin' I know I'll lose," Guzma chuckles — no pain, no shame punctuates that sentence. He's being burned alive, sandwiched between his soulmates. He can practically smell the barbecue. His eyes drift closed, Clementine's hair to his mouth. "Tell me about it. How it was."

Plumeria brushes her knuckles across his stubbly cheek, then reaches up to stroke Clementine's hair. "You gonna fall asleep on me?"

"On you? Never."

She tells him, and he doesn't fall asleep on her once. Beneath their hands, Clementine dreams of flying.


End file.
